New science shows exactly what is happening in your brain and how it can unlock a key to your consciousness.

Scientists have administered psychedelics to volunteers and scan their brain using functional magnetic resonance imaging and Magneto and Cephalon graffiti and found decreased blood flow to the default mode network.

The default Mode network is made up of the medial prefrontal cortex, the posterior singular cortex, the inferior parietal lobe.

You'll the lateral temporal cortex, the dorsal medial prefrontal cortex and the hippocampal formation.

This network keeps your brain working efficiently.

It's evolved to filter out the vast amount of information coming to your brain by predicting what you need and getting rid of what you don't.

If you are met with a new situation, your default mode network will use past experiences to make quick decisions.

Using less energy.

It creates the human capacity for self reflection, planning the future, worrying and reason it is where the brain creates the story of who you are as an individual.

Common psychedelics, such as Silas in or lysergic acid di ethyl amid are all trip to means.

So is serotonin, which is found naturally in your body.

These are organic compounds with a ring of six atoms attached to another with five atoms, which all have a high affinity for a receptor found in the outermost layer of your brain, called the five ht to a receptor.

Here we have the serotonin in your body, and here we have LSD.

The trip to mean core scaffold of the LSD molecule is similar to that of the serotonin in your body.

It is attached to an ERG Align scaffold connected to a di ethyl amid substitution.

Here, we see because of its similar shape to serotonin, the LSD molecule binding to your five HT to a receptor, and due to its chemical composition, it will bind for longer than serotonin ever would.

Naturally in your body, when psychedelics bind to the five ht to a receptor, a cascade of cellular biology causes the default mode network to decrease.

This leads to ego dissolution, a k a feeling less separation from others and from nature itself.

In fact, f m r I scans of those on psychedelics is similar to experience meditators who can effectively turn off their default mode network and temporarily vanish their ego.

Other times when the default mode network is decreased is during deep prayer overwhelming experiences of off, for example, looking at the Grand Canyon or even near death experiences.

A decrease in the default mode network can come with hallucinations.

But why on the left is a visual depiction of the neural networks in the brain of someone given a placebo pill.

On the right is a visual depiction of the neural networks in the brain of someone tripping on psilocybin.

With decrease action from the default mode network, your brain is no longer working efficiently.

It now has to make sense of increased information and starts filling in the blanks with hallucinations and altered perceptions.

In order to cope, living plants might start to grow faces.

The brain will never stop trying to make sense of the world, but now it is using new parts of the brain.

In fact, people who are color blind report being able to see certain colors for the first time.

While on psychedelics, a child's brain is actually similar to an adult brain on psychedelics.

As an adult, you have learned through experiences and prune your neurons to deal efficiently based on past experiences for kids.

Most experiences are new when they encounter a situation, their brain is not efficient looking more like this graph on the right than this graph on the left.

This explains their curiosity, slower processing obsession with nature and why they're better than adults.

At some intelligence tasks involving creativity or just straight up, white kids act like they're on drugs.

Existentially distress and a fear of dying usually means an overactive default mode network.

Obsessive self reflection.

Ah, fear of losing consciousness or the ego.

This is why, in recent years, psychedelic therapy has become a popular treatment for terminal illness and coping with end of life.

Fear addiction could be related to the story you have built about yourself, leading to some promising studies using psychedelic therapy to decrease addiction to smoking or alcohol.

Indigenous Americans have long used the psychedelic peo T to treat the alcoholism introduced by colonizers and played communities since the genocide.

From what Europeans studies that use hallucinogens as therapeutic tools have professionals who lead the trip and place importance on the set and setting.

The stakes are high when letting this much information into the brain and can lead to a bad trip.

But one thing is for certain.

Hallucinogens are helping us understand how the brain works.

Learn more about the human consciousness and our potential therapies for a variety of mental illnesses.

Links to all of the resources for this video are below.

I encourage you to read.

I think this year has been, for me, at least, about dealing with mortality and reading.

Research and studies on human consciousness has helped me.

Also.

I'll put a link below to our podcast side note where we take controversial subjects and study the science behind them.

And finally make sure your subscribe for more weekly science videos peace.